Punishment and reward are the two handles that emperors should use to rule his ministers and officials.
Legalism refers to school of Chinese philosophy that attained prominence during the turbulent Warring States era. The three main precepts of these Legalist philosophers are the strict application of widely publicized laws (fa), the application of such management techniques (shu) as accountability (xingming) and “showing nothing” (wuxian), and the manipulation of political purchase (shi). They believed in modelling political institution as per the human behavior and human's short-sightedness, thus punishment and rewards.
